Elvenar on FB is teasing us with this picture - WHAT IS IT???

[Ashrem]

I find this to be strange. Why would anyone not want to be in a FS? Of course most wouldn't want one with daily visits as a requirement, but there are plenty that ask absolutely nothing from its members. Sure the benefits of a FS are higher in those that do more together, but getting our what you put in seems pretty fair to me.

I enjoy being in a fellowship, but human beings are not a one-size-fits-all species. The fellowships that don't require anything also don't provide many advantages over solo play (not none, just not many). Features that add to the advantage of active fellowships are no of any benefit to those in the relaxed fellowships any more than they are to those who are not in a fellowship at all.

We all want the game to be better for our circumstances. That doesn't mean it should. If everyone leaves who is not a member of the top hundred or so fellowships, it will be even more barren than it is now. Unless it just shuts down.

 

[SoggyShorts]

I enjoy being in a fellowship, but human beings are not a one-size-fits-all species..........We all want the game to be better for our circumstances. That doesn't mean it should. If everyone leaves who is not a member of the top hundred or so fellowships, it will be even more barren than it is now. Unless it just shuts down.

I suppose it comes down to how many of each kind of player there is, and how important they are to the game.
Players serve 2 purposes from a developers perspective
1. They spend money.
2. They give spenders someone to play with.
Maybe there's a third possibility- a player who plays solo, and spends no money, but still helps the game by promoting it. I doubt that's a very significant portion of the playerbase though, so mostly it's a combination of 1&2.

If you are a free player that chooses not to interact with others, you might end up being a low priority for the developers, and imo that makes sense since the game was never designed for that style of play.

Giving active social players a benefit doesn't directly hurt non-social players, but I suppose it could make them feel less important.
There may be some balancing issues that arise if the in game costs/difficulty becomes balanced based on a developer assumption that the "average" player has xxx bonuses.

 

[Sir Squirrel]

It could be they are trying to make FS's more appealing to players so they will try to join one. The more advantages there is to join a FS, the more solo players will be inclined to join one and try it out. I think INNO's research showed them that players stick with the game longer if they are in a fellowship, it adds a lot to the game including making friends and being apart of a group that helps each other, and that makes players want to stay with the game longer IMO.

 

[Ashrem]

There are already enough advantages that anyone who doesn't join one is either clueless or making a specific choice. I doubt that more exclusive benefits would change that. I think the thing to do to make the game more social is to focus on improving communication and actual social activity, versus more prizes for being in one. A more feature rich chat, the ability to chat with people in sub-groups (even chats with groups of non-fs members and a world-wide chat with good blocking). Easier access to the functions that are there, like a cleaner interface for helping friends and neighbors. Stuff that makes people want to talk to each other, rather than prizes for doing the same thing we do now.

 

[The Unbeliever]

When I compare the benefits of FoE's Guilds vs. Elvenar's Fellowships, it's pretty easy to see that Elvenar has only very minor benefits to being involved in a FS...
The only 'big' advantages currently being;
- daily visits.
neighbours usually can't be counted on for this, and getting a few hundred to an extra 10000+ supplies/day is nice, but it's not in any way 'game changing'. The gold income is the same, whether you only visit 24 'hoodies or 24 fellows.

- trading partners.
Unlike in FoE, you *never* have to pay out fp's for non-fellowship/guild trades. The only 'disadvantage' to the trader is being heftily taxed for 'hoodies you haven't yet discovered on the map. Usually unless you're unlucky enough to be in a 99% 'dead zone', there's at least a few high level players around you who will always pick-up your trades.
The only decent 'advantage' to fellowship trading is that during big events, you can get critical trades picked up within hours vs. typically having to wait out 24-72 hours for a neighbour to pick things up.

- weekly tournament
This is by far & away, the current *big* advantage for being in a fellowship - sizable relic income + bonus kp's every single week.
Of course, just how good this is depends entirely on if anyone else in your fellowship can even be bothered to do more than the first province once! >.<
In my K-world city, I'm now in my 4th fellowship. It took me over 9 months to find a fellowship that could routinely clear more than just the first 3 chests/week!

On the other hand, FoE guilds offers not only 'free trading' (a positively huge advantage over solo players!), but also the weekly Guild Expeditions which earn; guild exp + personal rewards (coins/supplies/fp's/troops/goods/'special' buildings/DIAMONDS!!)
...and there's Guild vs. Guild as well, which gives a neat little PvP game play, without seeing your city get looted into oblivion...
...AND Guilds also offer daily fp's, reduced build times, reduced troop recruitment times, etc...

There's plenty of things that can be added to make Fellowships much better than they currently are. At the very least, even just adding in 'Fellowship Levels' that can then give boosts to builders/troop recruitment and daily kp's from the main hall would be awesomesauce!

 

[Ashrem]

There's plenty of things that can be added to make Fellowships much better than they currently are. At the very least, even just adding in 'Fellowship Levels' that can then give boosts to builders/troop recruitment and daily kp's from the main hall would be awesomesauce!

Again, Making the largest, most active guilds have a big advantage over everyone else simply discourages small players and sol players. Our Fs regularly clears 7-9 chests in the tourney, and each of us get around 50-80 extra KP and extra relics every week.

The game needs to be about more than the top 25 Fellowships per world. I'm not saying we get too much, I'm saying we don't need more. We need more reasons to spend time talking to other players, and fewer impediments to doing that, not more rewards for being in the best fellowship.

 

[The Unbeliever]

Considering that the most often encountered reply I've gotten from non-FS players when trying to recruit them into one of my previous FS's was, "no thanks - I don't really need the visits and a few extra relics/fp's aren't worth it", seems to me a good reason to offer far more incentives!

There's always going to be the top 25-50 or so FS that will probably never be caught.
That's no reason to condemn the other few 1000 or so FS's to utter pointlessness...

Acutally, having a Guild Expedition type event for FS's, that offer a chance at things like say, Reno Kits, Travelling Merchants, instants, some special culture buildings/etc... that scale according to a player's city, would give a huge boost to all the lower level players & give them a way to somewhat 'catch-up' to the higher level players.

 

[DeletedUser]

Not everyone plays a game for the same reason, not everyone has the same style of gameplay, and not everyone feels the need to be part of "the gang". I didn't come here to make friends, I came here to be left alone to build my cities and to shut out the BS of the Real World for a little while. It just so happens that my fat mouth got some of my real-life friends interested, and so...I have Fellowships. We have the benefit of knowing that if we're not chatting in-game it's not that we don't like each other, it's that we're tired and just want to do our stuff. Or if one of us doesn't play for a few days, it's alright, no explanations or apologies required, because no-one's city is going to implode because it didn't get assistance from everyone in the Fellowship. Someone has a sick child/partner/pet/parent/friend/self, no problem, your city will be here when you get back. Vacation? Excellent, and you'll still be in the Fellowship when you get back.

But not every group of people playing a game is going to be like that. Some people get way too serious about their gaming, making flow charts and graphs and having expectations of each member 'functioning' a certain way, as if it were a job they're not getting paid for or something. No matter how many 'incentives' are added to a game, there's always going to be players who just want to be left alone, and that's ok.

 

[SoggyShorts]

Not everyone plays a game for the same reason, not everyone has the same style of gameplay,........... and that's ok.

You guys are talking about 2 sides of the same coin.

There are fellowships with daily visit requirements and strict rules.
There are fellowships with zero rules and no expectations.
There are fellowships of every kind in between.

If a feature is implemented that gives active players in social fellowships more things to do together as a team it shouldn't have any negative impact on lone-wolf players or casual fellowships.

It's just like giving blueprints to FS that get the 10th tournament chest. Giving those 5-10 FS that prize didn't take anything away from the rest of us.

 

[Ashrem]

There is no prize for having a higher rank or score, so if the top gets even higher than the bottom, who cares?

Because we are human beings. Even kids know it's not fair if some people at the party get two scoops of ice cream when everybody else only gets one.

 

[DeletedUser]

there's at least a few high level players around you who will always pick-up your trades.

Not necessarily. Plenty of times my trades ran out of time. If you are offering something no one needs, they're not going to pick up your trade just to be nice.

Of course, just how good this is depends entirely on if anyone else in your fellowship can even be bothered to do more than the first province once! >.<

This statement sums up pretty well why some people don't want to be in Fellowships/Guilds...they don't come here to play for someone else's benefit. If I aid someone on my map, more often than not it's because I like their city, or I like their name, and I do so never expecting them to aid me back. If they do, that's great, if not, I don't care.

but also the weekly Guild Expeditions which earn; guild exp + personal rewards (coins/supplies/fp's/troops/goods/'special' buildings/DIAMONDS!!)

Did you ever hit the forums and see the players complaining about receiving the same 'specials' over and over again, and how they were tired of wasting their efforts? With no way to trade or gift those extra items, their only option was to delete them. Imagine spending diamonds to complete a Guild Expedition step, only to be rewarded with yet another of an item you neither needed nor wanted the first time you received it. And now you've got 12 of them. Honestly, I never thought it was as great as it sounded. Although, the guaranteed military reward was a big help when we had an Event quest that required players to "recruit x number of troops from your Age or x number from the previous Age". And the diamond reward was rare, and I never got more than 20 when I did get it. I got more diamonds from the Wishing Wells when they would pay those out.

...AND Guilds also offer daily fp's, reduced build times, reduced troop recruitment times,

I don't remember any of that. They must have implemented that after I left. Figures.

I loved FoE when I first started playing but it got old really, really fast. I hung on as long as I did (more than a year) because A) I needed a distraction and B) I kept hoping it would improve, that they would do something that would rekindle my interest. By the time they did, it was too little too late, and I was already fed up with stuff I've mentioned elsewhere. I came here from there; I love Elvenar because it is different from Forge of Empires. I see no reason to make it a fantasy version of FoE.

 

[SoggyShorts]

Because we are human beings. Even kids know it's not fair if some people at the party get two scoops of ice cream when everybody else only gets one.

Bah I had that posted for 15 seconds before changing it lol.

I see it like this:
People at your job are offered extra pay if they want to work overtime. You don't want to work overtime, so you don't. All of that is fine, but you can't complain that they make more money than you do. Also it's kind of a crappy move if you ask the company not to implement the overtime option just because you aren't going to use it.

 

[mucksterme]

Not necessarily. Plenty of times my trades ran out of time. If you are offering something no one needs, they're not going to pick up your trade just to be nice.

That's called being in a bad FS.
I have been the benefit of 'people just being nice'
and I do it for others all the time.
And it isn't limited to the FS.
I have a group of good neighbors that also are "nice" with trading

 

[SoggyShorts]

I have a group of good neighbors that also are "nice" with trading

Ditto. If it's a same tier 2 star trade under 5K I take it without even thinking. There's loads of players with much bigger stockpiles than me that seem to do the same with my 20K trades.

 

[DeletedUser]

That's called being in a bad FS.
I have been the benefit of 'people just being nice'
and I do it for others all the time.
And it isn't limited to the FS.
I have a group of good neighbors that also are "nice" with trading

I wasn't talking about this game, but rather Forge of Empires. In this game, I've never had that problem.

 

[mucksterme]

Ditto. If it's a same tier 2 star trade under 5K I take it without even thinking. There's loads of players with much bigger stockpiles than me that seem to do the same with my 20K trades.

I am reminded of a "funny" situation.

I mentioned before about being kicked out of an FS because I complained about the over abundance of 1 and 0 star trades.
What I hadn't mentioned was the post script. In conversation with the AM afterwards he said to me, "A couple people said you were always quick to pick up any 3 star trades."
I found that hilarious and greatly insulting at the same time.
First off hardly anybody there besides me posted 3 stars.
Secondly, it was a new fs I joined just to help out. My city on that world was rated about 25K. Most of the rest of the fs was sub 5K.
Maybe I did pick up 3 star trades, because, I picked up ALL the fs trades that were there any time I checked. In my boost or not. Until I got tired of all the bad trades.

So
Long story somewhat shorter.
I offended people by being a 'nice trader.' lol

 

[mucksterme]

I wasn't talking about this game, but rather Forge of Empires. In this game, I've never had that problem.

My mistake
I thought this was the Elvenar forum

 

[DeletedUser]

My mistake
I thought this was the Elvenar forum

Yes it is, but The Unbeliever was comparing the benefits of FoE's Guilds vs. Elvenar's Fellowships.

 

[Ashrem]

I see it like this:
People at your job are offered extra pay if they want to work overtime. You don't want to work overtime, so you don't. All of that is fine, but you can't complain that they make more money than you do. Also it's kind of a crappy move if you ask the company not to implement the overtime option just because you aren't going to use it.

While I see it like this:
People at work are offered extra pay if they want to work overtime, but only if they are one of the people who also hang around and play cards with their coworkers at lunch time. Since I like to look at pictures of kittens during lunch, I find playing cars with my coworkers at lunch irritating and unpleasant. Now you want me to not complain because people are suggesting that the people who play the most cards at lunch should also get to leave work ten minutes earlier than everyone else at the end of the day.

 

[mucksterme]

While I see it like this:
People at work are offered extra pay if they want to work overtime, but only if they are one of the people who also hang around and play cards with their coworkers at lunch time. Since I like to look at pictures of kittens during lunch, I find playing cars with my coworkers at lunch irritating and unpleasant. Now you want me to not complain because people are suggesting that the people who play the most cards at lunch should also get to leave work ten minutes earlier than everyone else at the end of the day.

And I look at it like this

I sign a contract to do a job for $100K a year
I am happy
It is what I expect to get out of the job
Then, I find out that Ms SoggyBottom is making $125K a year.
So what?
That does not affect me.
I was happy with my pay yesterday, nothing has changed.
Plus, I am not interested in doing the things for the boss that earns Ms SoggyBottom that $25K

PS
Some names were changed to protect the weird